The princess and the heavy metal musician - a real love story

An aspiring heavy metal musician from Yorkshire has married into the closest thing Ukraine has to a royal family, exchanging vows with glamorous former Prime Minister Julia Tymoshenko's daughter.

Sean Carr, 36, who used to run a chain of shoe-repair shops in Leeds and Bradford, married Yevgenia Tymoshenko, 25, in a 16th-century hilltop monastery in Kiev.

His image and past have caused controversy in Ukraine.

The Tymoshenkos are a wealthy and powerful family. Julia Tymoshenko is known as the Goddess of the (Orange) Revolution because of the role she played in overturning the results of a rigged election in December last year.

She went on to become Prime Minister but lost her job last month when President Viktor Yushchenko sacked the Government over a corruption scandal.

Ms Tymoshenko has since vowed to stand against Yushchenko in elections next year and is tipped to win back her role.

Yevgenia has lived in Britain since the age of 14 and is in the process of completing her studies at the London School of Economics. She met her new husband in Egypt during a holiday last year.

Carr's background is rather different from his new wife's.

He sings in a band called the Death Valley Screamers and rides a Harley Davidson motorbike.

Carr also owns a rottweiler called Salem and sports a giant tattoo on his stomach of an alien "escaping".

His band plays in Kiev's local bars and its first CD release in Ukraine appears to be selling well.

He also has a young daughter by a former partner who said in a British tabloid newspaper that Carr regularly beat her up and in 2002 broke her teeth, upper jaw and collarbone.

Carr was found guilty of assault and was sentenced to two years' probation and ordered to take relationship and anger management counselling.

He and his new partner were initially reported to be planning a wedding at Ripley Castle in Yorkshire but to have changed their plans to avoid adverse publicity.

If Julia Tymoshenko has any doubts about her new son-in-law she has not expressed them publicly, saying only that Carr is a "kind, educated and inspired person" who makes Yevgenia, her daughter, very happy and appears to "adore" her.

The wedding ceremony went smoothly at the weekend. There was bagpipe music and Ukrainian folk songs. Carr and the Death Valley Screamers were due to perform at the reception afterwards.

Many of the 150 wedding guests sported colourful tattoos and piercings. The couple briefly posed for photographs but announced they had decided they would not take questions from journalists.

The duo have said they intend to settle in Ukraine and start a family.

Journalists were anxious to see whether Yushchenko would attend the wedding in order to ascertain the state of relations between him and Julia Tymoshenko, but he did not appear to have been invited.

- INDEPENDENT